Eating Binges – A Fact of Human Life?
November 19, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
The eating binge is something that’s well known to most of us – especially those of us who are struggling to lose weight. In extreme cases, binge eating is even a disorder – people seem to lose control of their eating, concentrating on a single food group and consuming literally thousands of calories in a very short period of time. Afterward, the result is a feeling of guilt, or that you have ‘blown it’ – and, of course, the intake of that many calories at a time is disastrous to weight loss.
However, many experts have commented that dieting or restricting food intake can actually trigger binging for those who have that tendency already. It’s almost as though the restriction of food makes us feel so deprived that we respond by binging, and the guild that follows a binge can derail the diet for an even longer time that necessary. Many of us would give anything to be able to control the impulse to binge – eliminating it altogether would be ideal, in fact. In this way, we would really be able to control food intake and lose weight.
Most people look upon binging as a ‘problem’ behavior – an expression of some sort of distress, or even a type of neurotic behavior to be cured. After all, this type of eating is extreme – during a binge, people consume many times their ideal calorie intake for the day, and there seems no way to avoid weight gain if this becomes a habit. However, there is also evidence that indicates binging may just be a fact of life for all humans, a leftover from the way in which we obtained our food early on in human development. Think about it. Before agriculture came on the scene and regulated the food supply throughout the year, humans spent many millennia as hunters and gatherers. In fact, we should all remember that this pre-civilized, hunting and gathering existence went on for much longer than civilization had. Humans have practiced agriculture for little more than six thousand years, but humans (or advanced pre-humans) have been around for about 35 thousand years. So for the vast majority of human history, we were hunters and gatherers, and in that state, believe it or not, binging was a really good idea.
Think about it. This was before refrigeration or any other organized means of food preservation. People moved around constantly, and sometimes food was plentiful, while other times it was scarce. When food was scarce, there was no way to get more. Humans just had to do without, or survive on very little. That meant that when a hunt was successful, or when the early humans stumbled upon a grove or fruit trees, binging was the most reasonable, well-adapted response. The food was there at that moment, and who knew when it would be there again? So the early humans would have eaten as much of it as was humanly possible – in short, they binged. They had to. It had to keep them going until the next lucky find.
Our bodily drives are stronger and more primitive than what our minds tell us. So, while we might know, intellectually, that binging is not a good idea and that we should eat a pre-approved number of calories per day, the urge to binge is still as strong in us as it was in early humans. The difference, of course, is that our food environment is not self-limiting – there are no natural restrictions. We have access to almost all types of food at all times, unlike early humans. So, though our environment doesn’t necessitate binging, the behavioral drive is still strong.
That also explains why dieting can bring on a binge. A diet is like a period of scarcity or famine – biologically, this makes us want to binge, to make up for it, as soon as food becomes available. And the more you restrict your eating, the stronger your impulse to binge will be, because for early humans (physiologically identical to us) that was good survival behavior. That’s why the behavior is so hard to overcome – at one point, it was not just acceptable – it was necessary to human survival.
Authored by Michael Bens. For more great information on weight loss, diets, nutrition, and living a great healthy life style visit Gabae Weight Loss
Fatter Affiliate Checks – Show Me the Money!
November 12, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
One of the frustrations that beginning affiliate marketers encounter when they try to make money online is the slow rate at which money seems to dribble in, if at all. Checks may be only a few dollars in the beginning, if indeed a check actually shows up at all. The promised income just seems to come in dribs and drabs, not matter how diligent your effort. Companies that promise millions, send checks worth only pennies. How do you earn money online? Why can’t I make money fast? Why can’t I make money now?
Alas, the problem often is apparent at the outset in that many programs are free to sign up for. And there’s the problem. The free program that so excited you is not too hard to market to others. It’s free and people like free. But, unfortunately, if nobody is paying for product, there just isn’t going to be any income to generate profits. (Sometimes, the affiliate marketing company may have monetized the proposition some other waysuch as membership fees, advertising costs or course materials.)
Everyone loves free stuff. It’s a fact of life. And an offer of free membership in an affiliate opportunity is a great way to encourage new prospects to have a look-see to judge the value of your business proposition for themselves. And if the affiliates like what they see, they will more than likely consider a product purchase or upgrade.
Well, all of this takes time. Human nature is to procrastinate. And many people like to make their home business decisions slowly and carefully. While your prospects mull things over, your checks continue to be small, and business growth will be slow.. (Would it be better to start a type at home business?)
But isn’t that the nature of the affiliate marketing beast? Get rich SLOW? Multilevel pay plans take time to roll out and realize their potential. You have hopefully tried out the product line yourself through product purchases, so that you have by now become absolutely convinced to its value. The greater your faith and conviction in the value of your product (you did select a valuable product to be associated with in the first place, didn’t you?), the more your prospect is going to trust you and hopefully decide that you are worthy of more of his time and product purchase.
Affiliate marketing is wonderful in that you usually start with ready-made materials. That means you don’t have to hire an expensive design team and technicians in the beginning. You don’t need to enlist talented artists to prepare website layout and design. No bookkeepers or accountants to make sure the money goes where it should.
Multiple streams of income are not uncommon in many programs, and expert advice is often available from others who have succeeded with the program. Often there are free e-books and guides at hand, perhaps even some your can brand with your own affiliate ID for distribution.
Eventually, though, you’ll want to promote your affiliate opportunity in your own way with your own unique materialswhether via website or blogging or e-zine, and as you do so, the money will find its way to you. You’ll have to stop complaining about HTML and actually learn a few simple codes. You’ll do what you need to do to get your site up and running.
After all, if all the affiliate company needed to do was to launch a big advertising campaign using its own ads, it could do that without you and just keep the profits, couldn’t it? True, your participation permits them to uncover markets and resources they probably never would have. But, for you to really make big money, though, you must show some additional value and worth to the company. You must show how your unique skills can contribute to the marketing of their product.
You may purchase website visits and e-zine advertisements. You may participate in traffic exchanges and link exchanges. You may get a Wordpress blog up and running. Blog make money online ideas. Develop make money online forums. You’ll find that lead capture pages and an autoresponder are invaluable. You may decide that expert SEO and finding a ghostwriting is the way to go. You must somehow develop your own unique online content, though, so the search engines will find your own special corner of the internet and reward you with that key to online success-TRAFFIC. All of these things can be slow to do in the beginning, especially with limited experience and budget, so naturally dollars trickle in slowly as well.
But then, one day a surprise. Through testing, you have stumbled upon an ad or resource that works! Your check is bigger than you were expecting. Your affiliate program has recognized your worth. Some new prospects have decided that your opportunity does indeed deliver on its promises. You have taught them to succeed with your program and now make money teaching online. In fact, it is just the sort of program that has value for them and will work for them, too, they believe. You have found a source of more new prospects who are interested, too!
It is at that point that you recognize that you are doing something right. You have found out how to make money online free! And that if you continue to do more of the same, the checks have the potential to continue, and yes, to grow fat!
And fat affiliate checks open up a world of opportunity-more money for more advertisements (why not try offline ads?), more pay-per-click purchases, more co-op participation, and so on. The monster just seems to grow bigger and bigger, with only modest effort. Simple budgeting is the key to it all.
Ever seen a big fat affiliate “cash cow” monster check grow fatter still?
Let Jeremy Lytle help you get your own profit-pulling website up and running in 24 hours! Multiple income streams and full step-by-step training. Visit: http://tinyurl.com/yt4ufd
Hot Affiliate Marketing Tips for This Year
October 31, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
As the Internet changes, so marketing has to change with it, and that includes affiliate marketing. My affiliate marketing tips for this year include a different attitude to how to attract buyers and toward websites and blogs.
Presell don’t sell
The whole point of affiliate marketing is that you presell products, you don’t sell them. Trying to sell affiliate products, with banners and ads that scream ‘Buy Me’ are some of the biggest mistakes I see being made by affiliates. As an affiliate, your job is to get the prospect to the merchant’s site, and let the merchant do the selling.
Be careful, though, when selecting banners and text ads from merchants. Some do not understand the need to presell either, and they will offer sales material rather than pre-sales material. Don’t use it, write your own. That, then, is the first important tip for this year.
Get a website
Many affiliates do not have a website, and rely on Adwords to make money. This used to work, and can still work with impulsive buy products, but not with many products. The problem is simple – they don’t trust the seller.
This has nothing to do with the internet, by the way, it is just a fact of life. People like to feel comfortable with firms they deal with, and need to have been in contact with them five to seven times before they are ready to trust them enough to buy their products.
If you send someone directly to a merchant’s site from Adwords, you are invisible, and they merchant is a complete unknown. So you have little chance of making a sale. It is true that many seasoned marketers do, but believe me, the bulk of their income comes from elsewhere.
As an affiliate, you need to set yourself up as an expert in your niche, and that means you need a website. It does not need to be big. Five to ten pages are enough to do the job. Here, you give information, and get the prospects to sign up for your list so you can send offers to them.
So, my second affiliate marketing tip for this year is to get our own web site.
Write a blog
My third affiliate marketing tip is to write a blog. This can be added to any site that has Cpanel and Fantastico, which will install Wordpress for you in less than a minute. You can also get a blog at services like blogger.com and wordpress.com, but these have less authority than one you host yourself.
Straight away you can start posting to your blog, and you can write anything you like related to your topic. Not only is this useful, but it is fun.
So here are my three affiliate marketing tips for this year: Presell don’t sell; get a website to support your affiliate business; and set up a blog.
Get FREE reports and loads of information about affiliate marketing programs at jrhmarketing.wordpress.com – your source for guides and tips.
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